AIRSIDE : INTERCRIT

Project 4 (Grad Dip Architecture 09 UCA Canterbury)

Investigation into Manston Airport and Air-travel at 3 focusing scales.

MACRO

MEDI

MICRO

PARTI

chris simmons 0

ASH 41 : CITY ON DEMAND

Project 3 (Grad Dip Architecture 09 UCA Canterbury)

Manifesto

The current model of Urban Development is speculated through developers; driven by economic profit rather than community. Winding streets of stock built housing populate our

suburbs; relentlessly boring non-places degraded through regimented blandness, the individual needs of the person are forgotten and the default is accepted. The users of the spaces are anonymous; the only exchanges that occur are monetary. This commuter based society results in dead towns without social experience.

We question this trend and aim to create places of social exchange, where people not only

SLEEP/EAT/WORK but enjoy and expe- rience with others within memorable places. Ashford’s development has so far created spaces of “dead” culture and we endevaur to alter this loosely within the council’s timeframe of the three phases (2021,2031,2041)

To create community we will impliment a network of Social Exchangers into the existing adequate Infrastructure. These Hubs allow for peoples exchange of emotions, conversations and experiences and aim to create links between users of this new devel- opment. They are deployed as catalysts for, coding

the development of each achipelago's programmes and styles. We light the touch-paper, add the wood and watch the fire burn.

The explicit nature of each area leads to a rich and varied urban landscape with an air of escapism. Journeys between each island of identity create transitional moments of realised falsity. Mem ories are made through sequential triggers, locations are cemented through individuality, landmarks are used as way-f

inding nodes, prominant and representative of spatial location. Through time the augmentation of programme leads to paradox’s of usage, unexpected meetings of the individual and vividity throughout.

To quote Kevin Lynch “The final objective of such a plan is not the physical shape itself but the quality of an image in the mind.”

We embrace the false with open arms, accept the absurd and poke fun at the mundane. We create a City On-Demand where Tran- sience is key;

“If they want a Mountain, they can have a Mountain. If they want a Beach, they can have a Beach”

John Pritchard, Ben Reay & Chris Simmons 0

Liminal Space : The Memory Machine

Project 2 (Grad Dip Architecture 09 UCA Canterbury)

Liminal Space

Origin: 1880–85; <>

Liminality is derived from ‘limen’, meaning threshold. The concept of liminal space as introduced by anthropologist Victor Turner, suggests the idea of ambiguity and ambivalence. This in-between space should allow active exchanges of ideologies, concepts and methods of working. There is an indication of a transition from one state or space to another, an on-going search for answers, yet the end point might not or need not be defined. Therefore, the ‘liminal space’ might be read as a metaphorical realm where ideas and concepts: artistic, political, cultural, social or otherwise, are in constant states of contestation and negotiation.

Lim Le Ann: Liminality in the Arts

“The Memory Machine”

Memory is integral to experience and it is the interception of memory where opinions can be altered.The Memory Machine sits in the area of flux between Encoding (Receiving, Combining and combining information), Storage (Creation of Permanent Record) and Retrieval (Calling up information responding to stimuli).

The Memory Machine enables the Retrieval of past memories of an age gone by stimuli of materiality and form. It Encodes new memories through its use as an event on the Liminal Space of the train and it strengthens Storage of the Memory by providing review able photographic evidence.

Memories are Falsified, stored memories are hijacked and the Users are left questioning their experience of Trains throughout their life.

The Machine questions “Authenticity”, not only of the Memory but of the Machine itself. The brain is questioned if this is Authentic by the user, its look and materials appear aged and of a past time however it is not consistent. The process itself is also False/Authentic, the act of using props and background is strongly false however the photographic results appear Authentic through their Aged appearance and presentation.

The machine is a paradox that does not strive provide an answer but merely a question

Chris Simmons 0

CITY OF THE NON-NETWORK: An investigation into 'Place' in Contemporary Society

Introduction

I am sitting in a bar with friends; a place, and yet as I inhabit this space I am bridging between the virtual and real, updating my Twitter status, letting the followers know what I thought of the latest Blockbuster I have just exited from a cinema having watched AVATAR; A story of the future in which the protagonist implants their consciousness into an alien body allowing them to switch between two worlds. The film is state-of-the-art 3D using the latest technology and feels ever more relevant through my realisation of its process and subject in the writing of this essay.

The film came to my attention through my daily visits to the website killermovies.com, researched it on the online collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia.org, organised this trip through Facebook, contacting friends from my network and booking tickets on Odeon.co.uk. I inputted the Cinema’s Postcode into my Satellite navigation and was guided along the motorway to my destination. I collected the tickets by swiping my Credit Card at the computer terminal. I am a true member of the network society, a mannequin of the information age. Now in the bar I am not only communicating with the two people sitting opposite me at the table in the real but also the 30 followers on Twitter and 200 friends on Facebook in the virtual. People around me do the same; we are in a state of duality, coexisting in the two domains (the real place and the virtual place), this is the contemporary condition.

This essay comes out of two prominent writings of the 90s, Spanish socialist Manuel Castell’s 1996 work “The Rise of the Network Society” and French Anthropologist Marc Auge’s 1995 book; NON-PLACES: An introduction to Supermodernity. Both written at a time on the cusp of the digital age, part observation part prediction, I wish to explore and evaluate their work and its validity 15 years on from its conception, for it to be questioned within the modern context. I will evaluate Auge’s nonplace by studying the present condition of the non and how it is considered today as a place, I will then look at Castell’s work and consider the network society of his prediction and how I occupy part of it today. By cross examining these work and observing the current conditions of society’s opinion on place between the virtual and real I will attempt to offer a brief prediction of the future place. The ultimate question of this essay is of the changing prominence of “place” in the contemporary society based around the ever-increasing information network. As a student of Architecture one must know the world in which they are living and creating; this study will enable me to consider the deployment of architecture between the two realms of place and reconsider the validity of the built form in contemporary society

Evaluating the nonplace

Auge(1995) ‘If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, historical or concerned with identity will be a nonplace’

Auge’s Non-Places are in-between spaces of solitary identity, mobility and consumption (Airports, Airplanes, Freeways, Car-Parks, Supermarkets, Shopping Centres, Hotels, Office Parks, Stations, Camp Sites, Caravan Parks, TVs, Computers, ATMs and telecommunications networks)

To evaluate the validity of Non-Place one must experience it;

Bluewater at Christmas; one of the largest shopping centres in Europe at the busiest time of the year; I take this trip in fear. This is a 240-acre thriving hub of capitalist consumer culture, employing 7000 people and serving over 27 million visitors a year. Located in an abandoned quarry it is a locale with history that permeates into its architecture, the hub within a network of new roads and high-speed rail, this is a destination, not just a journey through. An internalised age-old city with streets, squares, markets and cafes; supported by parkland and lakes, this is the same place as it always has been in history bastardised for the contemporary world. Auge’s consideration of Shopping Centres as nonplaces is accepted today as evident in the Architects Journal article describing Westfield Shopping Centre Sinclair (2008) states ‘The London shopping centre is a happy slap of enchantment; a spectacular non-space. When you are here, there is no here.’

Although it may be an academic faux pas to admit the benefits of these types of places they are of underlying significance within today’s society. Modern exchanges happen in these nonplaces just as they do in Anthropological places of old, these exchanges may not be beautiful as in Auge’s nostalgic musings but they are real. This is a site of gathering that although inhabited by a somewhat generic character allows for interaction (admittedly these interactions are unlikely to happen but they are enabled for the willing inhabitant). The relationship between place and nonplace is one of dialectics, therefore an admittance of blurred boundaries is inherent within Auge’s theory, there is no pure place or nonplace. The argument that is put forward is severely out-dated within the contemporary city; Auge seems to overlook the identity of the workers of these nonplaces, to them the place is relational, and it is historical. Also within the repeated use even of a nonplace, in Auge’s terms for place they would become relational. The terms that he set are naïve about the way people use these spaces signify that these temporal relationships are fleeting. Our position within supermodernity is one of anonymity; Auge (1995) ‘we are all drivers on a highway with our identities lost’. This is possibly the greatest invalidity when transposing the theory to contemporary society; today we are never alone. I am more often connected than disconnected. This connection may be a factor in the renegotiated territory of place.

Is the consumer’s sense of place within Bluewater (theoretical nonplace) weakened through the availability of consumables through the internet; maybe. I can purchase exactly the same Blu-Ray from hmv.co.uk as I can from the colossal HMV store in Bluewater without having to queue, or I can just download/steam the film from iTunes and watch it portably from my iPod. Brand identity creates unitary familiarities throughout stores; HMV Bluewater appears the same as any HMV around the globe as well as the HMV website, places of decreasing architecture. Character and poetics are null and void, we inhabit the space of consumerism, non offensive, generic and carefully calibrated to allow for maximum business transaction.

Physicality is changing not just in space but object, just as cash has been overtaken by cards (possibly e-cash in future) physical media (disks) is being overtaken by data; the middle man is cut. The web boom of the early 21^st century allowed stores to decentralise, to function without the high costs of stores but to exist in a prominent virtual position, backed up by the bare necessacities of physical storage (warehouses). This is now taking a step further when media is even immaterial, it exits as bits, shipped and sold as bits and paid for with bits; the capitalist act is streamlined. This is an aspect of the Auge’s Non-Place and Castells Architecture of the space of flows where physical space is transient and reducing.

Auge’s nonplace is derived from a fear of the future. Anthropological Place as he calls it is derived of lived history and relation however he has decided the cut off point is the post-modern era. Places have been changing since urban development began; we have consistently been part of a shrinking world where people have become more connected through empire, discovery and technology. The 20^th century has been one of increasing detachment, increasingly stimulated through technology; culture is no longer sited in physicality but in the ether. Supermodernity seems to have come out of a 90s obsession with ever increasing travel as seen in Koolhaas (1995) S,M,L,XL boastful graph of the nights spent in hotels by Koolhaas through his attempts of world domination. We have now come to terms with Globalisation, we need not experience the globalised world through travel but through the network. Auge’s work does not predict the future as it now exists, it is limited within its time period. His considerations for the meaning of places within society are as important as ever however adapted for today’s world.

The Information Age

The Space of Flows describes human actions occurring through telecommunications technology across varying locations and distances through a global node system.

Castell (1996) ‘The space of flows is the material organisation of time-sharing social practices that work through flows’

The network society is the restructuring of the capitalist globe from hierarchies to transient networks. Capitalism occurs in these networks, nodal global cities around the world do business with each other via the space of flows. Castell doesn’t site modern urbanism in the physical space of cities however does state that it is in the MegaCity where it will be ultimately formed. Exclusion from the networks and the difference between the developed and undeveloped worlds is heightened through Castells thoughts, if you are not part of the network; you are not part of the world. We talk of Globalisation but within the network society we cater only to the developed. The developed world is being contested, new econonmies are emerging in previously underdeveloped areas, more and more countries are becoming part of the network society. This said we have and never will reach a unifying position of global network. To use Auge’s terminology the greatest difference will be between those networked place and those nonnetworked place.

Castell touches on the idea of the changing sense of place through the users of the space of flows; he admits it is still important for physical encounter however within this the physical place is immaterial. It is the ignorance by the public to relational place that is key here. He is in fact promoting the idea of the nonspace through his suggestion of the unitary characteristics of architecture of the end of history

Castell(1996)‘Because we do not belong any longer to any place, to any culture, the extreme version of post-modernism imposes its codified code breaking logic anywhere something is built. The liberation from cultural codes hides in fact the escape from historically rooted societies. In this perspective, post modernism could be considered the architecture of the space of flows.’

An example of the Network Society at work today could be no more prominent than Social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace. These sites allow people all over the world to communicate through digital means without face to face contact. These Virtual networks can be considered as places in their own right, virtual places just as important to the users as most real places where teenagers can loiter free from the disapproving looks of the middle classes and converse with their friends. These virtual places can also appear as reality through media such as MMORPGs (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Second Life is one example where users can live out all the mundane tasks of life in a virtual world through the use of Avatars. The company website boasts of the ability to be anyone and do anything, I can even make virtual money by working as a virtual Architect or study at the virtual MIT classroom, netscapism is a growing condition. We can read these emerging 3D virtual environments as precursors to the predictions of William J. Mitchell’s City of Bits. written as a wake up call to architects, Mitchell envisioned a future reality being contested by the virtual, electronically mediated, questioning the need for the physical city. Mitchell sees the future virtual place as a 3d networked environment that users inhabit much as these MMORPG; Mitchell(1996) ‘The body net will be connected to the building net, the building net to the community net, the community net to the global net’. At this point in time the World Wide Web in practice has no physicality, no authenticity; there is no sense of space transformation within it. Pages and images are presented through a window, information “pops-up” from a white screen; there are no journeys, just pauses in the flow. Mitchell’s ideas of connection presume a stationary wired connection, situated in physical architecture; however with the advent of mobile networks this stationary position is invalid. We are no longer fixed to the virtual through a window at our desks; the virtual comes with us to the real.

Castell’s network society is also based around stationary nodal points fixed around the global city however in today’s society these nodes are in a state of flux. Mobility is the latest trend of technology and is a key concept in the future of place. Mobile phones and PDAs are ever increasingly becoming substitute computers; take Apple’s iPhone as an example. It encompasses phone calls, text messages, photography, video, music, instant messaging, e-mail, internet, wifi connectivity and GPS. It is an amalgamation of applications that are always at arms reach, allowing the user to do everything they can at the desk without restriction. This is the perfect tool for the information age; its users are Nomads, moving through the real while wirelessly connected to the virtual. The iPhone could be a place in itself or at least the enabler of place. Mobile GPS could be one of the most useful tools for the Nomadic user, their position always relational within the globe and network. Their physicality within real place reinforced by dipping in to the virtual, locating the nearest restaurant, tube station or restaurant. The meaning of place in terms of Auges criteria are heightened through the mobile networks supply of relevant information. A place can be given more relational experience through integrating it with the virtual place. I can continuously be a participant of the information age through my connection to the mobile network, whilst physically inhabiting place.

Another key consideration of the contemporary information age is in which the networked information is produced.

Guattari(1989) promotes the de-centralising of information creation within his prominent writing; The Three Ecologies. Although it is written at a time before the Internet it can be particularly interesting to relate it to the contemporary user based content of internet. Major web-sites such as YouTube and Wikipedia can be considered examples of ecosophic media, where free information, created and edited by users is spread across the network society. We live in an age when the most random of utterances is celebrated and memorialized through YouTube; comic triviality turns people into viral-video celebrities. Students can instantly research a topic without cost through Wikipedia and although there are problems of authenticity it is mostly a reliable source. On the surface this virtual realm appears to be in-keeping within Guattari’s Marxist ideals, however just as with the Real world, Castell’s and Auge’s are both admittant in their observations being the product of Capitalism. The internet is rife with Advertising, exploitation and consumerism where global companies such as Google and Microsoft rule supreme. If the virtual is a reflection of the real then just as with Auge’s Place/Nonplace the relationship between the Real and Virtual is now dialectic.

What of the future?

Having viewed past theories and observed our current condition I now have an opportunity to envision the future. Joseph (2008) warns us in the film series “Zeitgeist Addendum” of a future of implanted RFID chips, allowing for constant connection to the global network regardless of need or desire. Where locations can be tracked and behaviour manipulated. It is all too easy to suspect a future dystopia which has been addressed by many sources from Orwell’s “1984” to the Wachowski’s “The Matrix”. Advancing technology is always approached with cynicism, possibly the most prominent fear today is one of privacy. The middle classes gripe about the emerging problems of the “Facebook Generation” and how we can solve this by getting back to the ‘good old days’, just as Auge they fear the future. Virtual life does seem to be prioritised by some above physical existence (netscapism), privacy is highly contested and trolling is prominent amongst the young.

Will it be that to be absent from the network will be more poignant? Our relationship with Place in contemporary society and future is ever changing and territories are constantly being contested between the Virtual and Real. Are we creating a nomadic society with a mobile sense of place, one foot in the virtual and one in the real? If we are splitting are time between the two do we not loose half of their meaning through half of our attention or is our sense of physical place heightened through the information we can obtain through the network. Auge was wrong, we can no longer be alone in a place however could we be creating a future where we long for the nonplace, to be alone.

Readings

Castells, M. (1996) The Space of Flows. In: The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell pp. 407-459

Guattari, F. (1989) The Three Ecologies, London: Continuum

Harvey, D. (2006) Space as a Key Word. In. Spaces of Global Capitalism pp. 119-148. London: Verso

Books

Auge, M. (1995) NON-PLACES: An introduction to Supermodernity, London: Verso

Boyer, C. (1996) Cybercities, Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age, Economy, Society and Culture Vol 1,

Hoboken: WileyBlackwell

Crang, M., Thrift, N. (2000) Thinking Space, London: Routledge

Debord, G. (1967) The Society of the Spectacle, New York: Soul Bay Press

Gausa, M (2004) The Metapolis Dictionary of Advance Architecture, Barcelona: Actar

Giddens, A. (1982) Sociology: A brief but critical introduction, London: Macmillan

Elden, S. (2001) Mapping the Present: Heidegger, Foucault and the Project of a Spatial History, London: Continuum

Johnscher, C. (1999) Wired Life, Who are we in the digital age, London: Anchor Books

Koolhaas, R., Mau, B. (1995) S,M,L,XL, New York, Monacelli Press

Koolhaas, R (2001) Project on the City, Taschen GMBH

Koolhaas, R., Boeri, S., Kwinter, S., Tazi, N., Obrist, H, U. (2001) Mutations, Barcelona: Actar

Mitchell, W, J. (1996) City of Bits, Space, Place and the Infobahn, MIT Press

Mitchell, W, J. (2003) ME ++, The Cyborg Self and the Networked City, MIT Press

MVRDV (1999) Meta City Data Town

Oswalt, P. (2005) Shrinking Cities Volume 1 International Research

Sievers T. (1997) Cities without Cities, Interpretation of the Zwischenstadt, London: Routledge

Virilio, P. (2000) The Information Bomb, London: Verso

Journal Article

Sinclair, I. (2008) 'Westfield Wonderland', Architects Journal, No 23 Vol 228

Film

Joseph, P (2007) Zeitgeist The Movie, GMP LLC

Joseph, P (2008) Zeitgeist Addendum, GMP LLC

Online

Shor, S., Eyal, A (1998) City of Bits: Will the network kill the city? Event Review, [Online], http://www.shirleyshor.com/text/city_of_bits.htm

Collins, S (1996) "Head Out On the Highway": Anthropological Encounters with the Supermodern [Online], http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.996/review-2.996

http://www.earthcam.com/

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.facebook.com/

http://secondlife.com/

http://twitter.com/

http://earth.google.com/